IT is a large commitment, and a very ambitious one, if seriously meant. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has promised electricity and drinking water to all households by the end of 2007 — two and a half years from now.

He had earlier spoken of a bulb in every village in the country, but now he is positive in terms of supplying electricity to every household as well as drinking water within a short period. He made this commitment in Thatta which is too often ravaged by floods and tidal waves — one of the poorest areas of the country.

He has not explained how power would be supplied to each household in the country within this short period, but said there would be a water purification plant in each union council of the country. While he may be able to get the water equipment locally made or imported, where would he get all the water from, needed to be purified and then provide it to people? There is an acute shortage of water in many parts of the country, including Karachi, where people suffer from various ailments by drinking impure water at a high price.

When it comes to power, the decision about having large dams for hydel power production has yet to be made. Whether the final choice is Bhasha dam or Kalabagh dam, completion of the project would take several years. Then the supply lines have to be established along with transmission and distribution systems.

And if we are to depend on gas to produce additional power, the country is short of gas. And the first meeting of the India-Pakistan working group for the construction of the 4.5 billion dollar Iran-Pakistan-India gas met this week. Details to be settled include the gas pipeline transit fee, which is bound to be controversial, as India wants to pay low rates.

There has been frequent talk of use of renewable or alternate energy, but few practical steps have been taken. And now we are expecting foreign investment in that area, particularly for using solar power. That too will take a couple of years to materialise and become truly operational on a large scale.

Undeterred by such factors President Musharraf has reaffirmed his commitment to the far-flung areas of the country to develop them fast. There is also talk of setting up industrial centres in the tribal areas. That can demand a great deal of investment in return for small rewards; but those areas cannot be neglected either while the traditional vested interests demand that we leave those domains under their care.

The tribal areas may need a special task force to study how best they could be developed economically and socially, and made to serve the nation as well as themselves. The tribal areas can’t remain as they are for ever after 58 years of independence and be a source of international concern as well. The investment needed in these areas is large but the return can be small; but there is no way out of such a predicament quick.

Such moves are proposed by the government at a time when world oil prices have touched 61 dollars a barrel and are too slow in coming down. And that would increase the balance of trade deficit and also the balance of payments deficit despite the rise in home remittances of overseas Pakistanis to four billion dollars. Already in the year ending June 30 the balance of trade deficit rose to a record 6.25 billion dollars, aggravating the balance of payments as well.

On the other side, inflation rate remains at double digit level, belying the projection of eight per cent inflation rate in the new financial year. And as the domestic oil prices are raised, reflecting the rise in world oil prices, inflation within the country will further go up.

Spurring that is the increase in money supply by Rs422 billion last year. Bank deposits, too, have risen by Rs500 billion showing there is plenty of money around despite the increasing interest rates. When the home remittances alone aggregate to Rs. 240 billion, let apart the large profits from speculation on the stock market and the booming real estate profits, inflation is bound to rise fast. Added to that is the rise in consumer banking which is assiduously promoted by the increasing number of banks.

The government’s own revenues is very steady due to the high economic growth rate of 8.4 per cent, the flourishing corporate sector which yields higher tax revenues and other business activity which provides larger sales tax revenues despite the recent tax concessions. So the government can afford to spend Rs272 billion on the Public Sector Development Programme — Rs70 billion more than targeted last year, to accelerate the economic development of the country, particularly the infrastructure, which is grossly insufficient.

Despite these factors it remains to be seen whether the government can deliver in the areas of water and power what the prime minister has promised to the people in every part of the country by 2007.

Meanwhile, the Group of Eight rich countries have promised 50 billion dollars more as aid to under-developed Africa. Some critics say the enhanced aid in fact is what had been committed or indicated earlier to the lest developed countries of Africa.

In reality, it is argued, the enhanced aid will be neutralised by the increase in oil prices. The sub-Saharan countries alone will be spending one billion dollars more on import of the higher priced oil and other less developed African countries 10 billion dollars as a whole in a year. May be the Opec should set up a special fund to help the least developed countries of Africa many of which are Muslim states.

As a result of the greater focus of the donors on the less developed countries of Africa the grants Pakistan receives may be reduced as well as the highly concessional aid. We may have to depend far more on World Bank and Asian Development Bank loans.

When we have been talking of having achieved 8.4 per cent economic growth last year and of sustaining such a high rate of growth for long, and boasting of having achieved one of the highest rates of growth in Asia, we may not be able to plead for more concessional aid effectively. Instead we may have to make the best use of the loans that we seek, and now we are seeking Islamic Sukuk loans after the success of the loan floated last year.

But Western countries may be more ready to offer assistance for the promotion of education, public health, environmental protection and restraints on population growth. They want our people to get more educated and enlightened so that there will be less of extremism and terrorism.

The US aid given on a political basis, like the three billion dollar five-year package for defence and economic development, would continue. And the less aid we get from the

US the less we will be under compulsion to follow pro-US policies in a period of the US global dominance and unilateralism.

The good that higher economic growth and larger tax revenues are doing to the country is negated as far as the people are concerned by the sharp rise in oil prices. Which has a multiplier effect on prices as a whole. And yet the affluent sections of people consumed 10 per cent more of the POL last year than before, and the projection for the current year is the rise in consumption will be five per cent.

The largest number of cars and motor cycles was purchased last year in the country. Adding to that now is the rise in imported cars, following the reduction in import duty on them.

We can make more cars and import far more to meet the demands of affluent consumers. But how to make the roads safe? It’s a situation made far worse by reckless or careless driving with its rising death toll every day, more so on the highways. It is time serious thought was given to this problems and solutions found which, of course, do not lie in more bullet-proof Mercedes purchased at public expense for the rulers and officials.

The prime minister says the law against land mafia has come into effect and those in illegal possession of government lands will be dispossessed of them. But the land mafia should be rendered ineffective not only on government lands but all the lands it has grabbed and that is not an easy task.

He has to think of the role of the other mafias — the water or tanker mafia as well. It is the tanker fleet owners who sell water at high rates after getting it from pumping stations at nominal rates. They have raised their rates for a tanker of water by Rs 200 within two months for the Clifton area, for example. The kachi abadis areas pay even more for a tanker of water. The tanker mafia fix their rates collectively and there is hardly any escape from that. And once their rates go up they never come down, even if the government reduces the POL rates.

If the government cannot supply water to the people it should at least protect people from the exploiters of a basic need like water. And all mafias should be made to act within the realm of reason, and not indulge in excessive exploitation.

Karachi is to have a new textile city. Work on the 700-acre city is to start soon which will eventually cost Rs. 12 billion in two phases. It will earn two billion dollars through exports and provide jobs for two million people, says the minister for textile Mushtaq Ali Cheema. Will it really create two million jobs? It all depends on what kind of textile machinery is imported and employed. If most of them are labour-saving machines, as modern machines are, the number of persons employed may be far less.

But then, it will be argued by the investors at the Port Qasim Authority area that their exports have to be highly competitive in prices in the modern age and so they need labour-saving machines, as is the case in other textile exporting countries. The water supply project for the textile city is to cost Rs one billion.

WASHINGTON’s recently concluded 10-year defence pact with India introduces a new and ominous dimension to the already volatile and unstable security environment of the region. The emerging “strategic partnership” between the US and India is bound to have far reaching implications, not only aggravating Pakistan’s security concerns but also destabilizing the critical balance of power in the region.

This development only reinforces the prevalent public perception in Pakistan of traditional US insensitivity towards Pakistan’s genuine security concerns. The deepening Indo-US strategic partnership with all its ramifications has raised serious fears in Pakistan about its impact on the overall regional security environment, including prospects of durable peace in South Asia.

There is a general feeling all over the world that the US was not a “steadfast and reliable” friend and that over the decades, the US neglect and “self-serving” exploitation of its friends had contributed to most of the current problems in the region. The US now treats Pakistan as “an errand boy” sweeping the battleground in the current “war on terror.” In fact, this is the nature of the “strategic” relationship that we have always enjoyed with the US.

Pakistan has traditionally been a moderate, progressive and forward-looking country, which on its creation in 1947, made a deliberate choice to opt for the pole that stood for freedom and democracy in that intensely bipolar world. Through those harsh cold war years, the policy of containment was enacted on our soil and we were a major player in dismantling what the free world called the “evil empire” comprising the former Soviet Union. We did not blink despite the intensity and proximity of the Soviet gaze.

In the early 1950s, as a young state, with growing concerns about India’s designs against us and in the region, we gravitated naturally to western alliances which apparently represented at that time the pole that stood for freedom and justice. Our experience, however, did not match our expectations.

Our participation in Seato and Cento was the expression of our choice for freedom and security. But woefully, when it came to defending ourselves in the wars against India in 1965 and then in 1971, we were left all alone.

In 1971, taking advantage of an entirely domestic political crisis in our country, India intervened militarily subverting our independence and territorial integrity. No world power, not even the US stopped it from dismembering Pakistan, the worst that could happen to any independent country in the world.

A determined US reaction at that time in support of Pakistan, an ally and a friend, “unilaterally” or with the help of an “international coalition,” would have prevented future military invasions and costly wars, including the Afghan war, the Gulf war and now the Iraq war. Saddam Hussein could not but be emboldened in his own military adventures. After all, the world had acquiesced in India’s military adventure against Pakistan.

What a price the US and its allies are paying today for letting down 20 years ago an “important strategic ally” in the face of a blatant aggression from a “big hegemonic neighbour.”

As against its own plethora of frustrating experiences, Pakistan’s “historic” errands on behalf of the US included allowing its air bases to be used by US spy planes in the 1960s (remember Gary Power’s U-2 mission?) a seminal contribution in the 1970s by serving as the first bridgehead between the US and China, and our front-line role in the decisive battle of the cold war following the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979, which hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union. These are just a few but universally chronicled historical examples of what the US accomplished with the help of Pakistan, one of its “most important and faithful strategic allies.”

In return for these services to the free world and a monumental contribution to bringing the miracle of our era signified by the fall of the Berlin Wall, the US “rewarded” Pakistan with economic sanctions and coercive measures when in the absence of any assurances or security guarantees against a recurrence of Indian aggression, we were left with no choice but to develop our own credible deterrent with a view to protecting our freedom and independence. Over the years, Washington’s punitive and discriminatory policies against Pakistan had a crippling effect on the country’s economy besides tearing apart its social and political fabric.

Pakistan has stood with the US through thick and thin despite having been left alone in the face of endemic threats to it security and survival from its neighbourhood and the disastrous consequences of the Afghan war. It continues to suffer the disastrous consequences of the direct role it played in the Afghan war in the form of receiving a massive refugee influx and a culture of drugs and guns, commonly known as the “Kalashnikov” culture, which spawned the worst type of extremism and sectarianism in Pakistan.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Pakistan is once again a pivotal “front-line” state fighting terrorism as a key US ally and partner. The effectiveness of its role and capability in this process will, however, be predicated on the overall political, socio-economic and security environment of South Asia and on how the US engages itself in helping the region to overcome its problems.

Indeed, today’s world is in turmoil. South Asia is at the receiving end of most of

its problems ranging from inter-state and civil conflicts to unresolved disputes, human tragedies, violence, extremism and terrorism. Unfortunately, the world has not paid enough attention to the genuine need for peace and stability in the region which is home to more than one-fifth of humanity.

The policymakers in the world’s major capitals, especially Washington, should have been working “extra time” to evolve a pattern of constructive engagement that promotes a sense of security and justice in this region through peaceful settlement of disputes and an enabling environment for sustained socio-economic development. It is time a serious appraisal was made of the policy options available to the regional as well as global stakeholders in making South Asia a factor of stability for global peace and security.

Addressing the UN General Assembly in September 2002, President Musharraf had given a somber call to the international community when he described post-nuclearized South Asia as “the most dangerous place on earth” where peace was “hostage to one accident, one act of terrorism, one strategic miscalculation....”

There could not be a more poignant reminder of South Asia’s critical importance in today’s world as a factor in global stability. With the overt nuclearization of the subcontinent, South Asia’s problems are no longer an exclusive concern of the region itself. They now have a worrisome global dimension which raises major powers’ stakes in the issues of peace and security in this region.

The seriousness of the challenge now confronting the world community, especially the powers that matter, is rooted in South Asia’s turbulent political history, its geo-strategic importance, its untapped economic potential, and the gravity and vast array of its problems with their impact on the global security environment.

Any objective assessment of this region’s turbulent political history and its current volatile environment will reveal that South Asia’s issues of peace and security, in their essence, emanate from India-Pakistan hostility and conflict. Their troubled relationship has been without parallel anywhere in the world in the post-Second World War period. At the heart of all their current problems is the Kashmir issue, which has kept relations between the two countries bedevilled, perpetuating mutual tensions and animosity.

The two countries have fought wars and remained locked in a confrontational mode each bearing heavy costs in terms of political, economic and social problems, and resultant human suffering.

Their most recent crisis came three years ago when both countries came to the brink of yet another war with their troops deployed in an eyeball to eyeball position along the international border. The crisis was defused only with intense diplomatic pressure by the US and other G8 countries, averting what could have been a catastrophic clash between the two nuclear-capable states.

A ceasefire along the Line of Control in November 2003 with several mutual confidence-building measures, including Pakistan’s assurances of not letting its territory to be used for any “terrorist” activity or cross-border infiltration as well as constant pressure from influential outside powers brought them back to the conference table in January 2004.

Since then, the two countries have been engaged in what has been called a “composite dialogue” on the basis of the 8-item agenda and mechanism agreed between them in June 1997. But the role of the world community should not end there.

Given the dynamics of their equation and the experience of their “bilateralism” over the past 58 years, the two countries, left to themselves, may not be able to “grasp the nettle.” They need a helping hand in the form of constant international support and “nudging” to move ahead towards the final settlement of the Kashmir issue.

People in both countries would welcome any innovative approach that facilitates a final settlement of the Kashmir issue. This would, no doubt, require both India and Pakistan to move beyond their respective stated positions and to work out an agreement that is “equitable, feasible and implementable” and that also took into account the legitimate interests of India, Pakistan and the Kashmiri people. But this would also require the US and other major powers not to disrupt the delicate balance of power in the region.

India’s prime minister is due to visit Washington soon. One would have thought the US would seize the opportunity to promote India-Pakistan rapprochement by helping them find a peaceful solution to their disputes, particularly the Kashmir issue. But the wide-ranging framework of its just concluded defence alliance with India is an ominous, indeed an alarming development, which would not be without serious implications for the region’s stability and strategic balance.

Washington needs to realize that people in both India and Pakistan have suffered for too long as a result of continuing tensions and conflicts between the two countries, and now want the region’s confrontational legacy to be brought to an end. The policies that create strategic imbalances in the region and fuel an arms race between the two nuclear-capable neighbours with an escalatory effect on their military budgets and arsenals are no service to the peoples of the two countries.

There is a three-dimensional challenge now confronting regional as well as global stakeholders to manage the magnitude of this region’s political, economic and social problems by working together in:

— promoting democracy, peace and the rule of law within and among the region’s states through universally acknowledged norms and principles,

— promoting durable peace in South Asia through the elimination of the root causes of instability and conflict in the region and a peaceful settlement of disputes in accordance with the modalities prescribed in the Charter of the United Nations, and

— bringing stability to the region by encouraging restraint and responsibility as well as mutual confidence-building on the part of India and Pakistan, both nuclear-capable states, for avoidance of conflict.

South Asia needs this three pronged strategy not only for its own well-being but for that of the entire world. The foremost requirement is for the major powers, the US in particular, to avoid disturbing the strategic balance of power in South Asia.

What we need in this region is not the induction of new destructive weapons and lethal technologies but the consolidation of peace, stability, economic development and democratic values that we lack so much.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

AS US ambassador to the United Nations for special political affairs from 1993 to 1997, I had the not-always-scintillating experience of sitting through countless meetings of what was known as the Open-Ended Working Group on Security Council Reform.

The principal preoccupation of this committee was the important but politically thorny question of how to expand the 15-member UN Security Council to reflect the day’s global realities rather than those of 1945, when the United Nations was created. Currently, the five permanent seats on the Security Council are held by the major victors of World War II — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China (each of which has veto rights) — while the rest of the world rotates through the 10 nonpermanent seats.

Today, the reform effort that began more than a decade ago is still under way. As former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said two years ago: “No UN issue has been studied more with less to show for the effort than Security Council enlargement.” Some have suggested that the committee I served on should have been called the Never-Ending Working Group.

But recently, a small window of opportunity opened for change — and the United States should not allow it to slip away. At stake is the Security Council’s long-term legitimacy and, by extension, its effectiveness. The window opened in March, when Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for a major overhaul of the United Nations to meet the threats and challenges of the 21st century. Annan made it clear that no plan would be complete without reform of the Security Council, which, he says, “lacks legitimacy in the eyes of the developing world.” Others agree. The Economist put it bluntly: The council is “dominated by rich white nations.”

Annan wants the council restructured so that it is more representative of the United Nations’ 191 members. (There were 51 in 1945.) He has suggested two models for expanding the council from 15 to 24 members. One — the leading contender — creates six new permanent seats and three new nonpermanent ones; the other creates nine new nonpermanent seats. Annan wants a decision before September, when world leaders convene in New York.

The four leading candidates for new permanent seats on the Security Council are Japan, Germany, India and Brazil. All four will be key global players in the 21st century and certainly meet U.S. criteria — they are all strong democracies with considerable economic status and large populations, and all make sizable contributions to the United Nations.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has put forth its own plan, one that neither opens the door to these four aspirants nor provides sufficient new representation from other regions of the world. (Annan’s first plan does both and his second does the latter.)

The Bush plan downsizes Annan’s proposal from 24 members to 20, calling for two new permanent members (Japan and one from the developing world) and three new nonpermanent seats. In doing so, the Bush administration has backed off long-standing US support for Germany’s bid. Not surprisingly, some see this as payback for that country’s opposition to the Iraq war. With India and Brazil, the administration has been noncommittal, even though India is only a generation away from becoming the world’s most populous nation and Latin America has no permanent representative on the current council. (Neither does Africa.)

The Bush administration says it doesn’t want the Security Council to grow so large that it becomes ineffective. Indeed a 24-member council could be more argumentative and time-consuming. But the expansion proposed by Annan is a modest one given the growth in member states since the end of the Cold War. Either of Annan’s two proposals would increase the membership representation in the Security Council from today’s 8 percent to 13 percent.

Annan’s proposal also makes a significant concession on what has been described as “the thorniest issue in a thicket of thorns”: It does not offer veto power to the new permanent members. This is important because US officials have complained that handing out new vetoes would paralyze the Security Council. Japan, Germany, India and Brazil recently dropped their demand for the veto.

The United Nations, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year, would not have come into being without the creative and farsighted leadership of the United States. Today, another demonstration of that leadership is required if the Security Council is to be reformed to meet the challenges of the next 60 years. —Dawn/Los Angeles Times

The writer, a former US ambassador to the United Nations, is currently a professor at George Washington University.

THE tragic incident which killed innocent people in the 7/7 bombings in London, is to be condemned.

The 9/11 terrorist attack led to the war on Afghanistan and Iraq, waged with superpower ferocity and killing mostly innocent people. Yet, neither was Osama Bin Laden brought to justice, nor were weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq.

Except for the 19 suicide bombers, who struck the twin towers, “the large support network of these bombers in the USA itself and outside’, remains untraced and is a mystery till today. The war on terror, therefore has failed, forcing a change in the “two-war strategy”.

The 7/7 bombings in London invites world reaction and anger. It is yet to be seen in which direction this reaction and anger will flow. Who will be the next target? How many more innocent lives will be lost and how much more destruction will be caused? Searching for the perpetrators of the crime, will the “spin doctors” find the lead to Al Qaeda or unknown terrorists, in Iran, Syria or Pakistan? What will be the ferocity of action of “shock and awe” and towards whom will it be directed? The world is waiting to witness the fireworks, in great suspense and fear.

Such acts of terror conducted in such a synchronized manner and with a few minutes of each other demand a high degree of expertise and a fool proof network of ‘ground support base’, within London and around, with tentacles, spreading beyond. Regretfully, the search for the ground support base in New York and beyond was not carried out in the case of 9/11, with the result that the wrong targets were engaged “bringing the war on terror to a naught.”

The same mistake must not be repeated. The British intelligence is rightly “searching for a small cell of foreign nationals... And the gang of white mercenary terrorists, while taking extra security measures at the British border.”

The collective wisdom and efforts of the G8 leaders must be harnessed to study and analyse the various dimensions of the incident leading to very deliberate actions, in order to achieve the objectives. Jumping to conclusions and acting in haste will be counter-productive because the suspected terrorists are elusive and unidentifiable, with doubtful reference to a place or a country.

The so-called terrorists are in fact splinter groups of the on-going freedom movements in Chechnya, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Kashmir. They have a distinct identity of their own and have objectives different from the forces engaged in the wars of liberation. They kill innocent people to terrorize and demonstrate their frustration and feelings of revenge.

Sagacity, therefore, demands that the collective wisdom of the G8 leadership in particular, must device the strategy to appropriately and correctly deal with the threat of terrorism and avoid chasing shadows by debasing the wars of liberation. The option of application of force to deal with the terror menace has failed so far. It will fail again. Therefore, the present situation, which is the legacy of past mistakes, demands an entirely new approach.

Freedom, democracy and social justice were the catchwords for post-9/11 actions, but unfortunately, the meaning of freedom has become synonymous with occupation thus increasing the intensity of resistance. Democracy has become a matter of choice, debasing the very notion and its quintessential meaning. Therefore, the need for a very dispassionate look at the means of promoting democracy and regime change in order to eliminate terrorism, cannot be over emphasized.

The 9/11 and now 7/7 events have had a far-reaching impact globally. In a way, 9/11 retarded the movement towards globalization and the actualization of a new world order, which is going to be very different from the bipolar world order of the past, and will not be as brutal as the unipolar world order of today. The distinctive features of the new world order will be socio-economic harmony between the contending geo-economic world powers, and the hunt for global prosperity and well-being through economic cooperation and not the use of military means. In this context, the recent Indo-US defence pact, doesn’t fit into the present day geo-political realities. It is anachronistic.

The weaker forces of resistance have put a limit to the military means of the most powerful in the world. One, therefore, agrees with Robin Cook (former British foreign secretary): “The danger now is that the West’s current response to the terrorist threat compounds that original error. So long as the struggle against terrorism is conceived as a war that can be won by military means, it is doomed to fail. The more the West emphasizes confrontation, the more it silences moderate voices in the Muslim world who want to speak up for cooperation. Success will only come from isolating the terrorists.”

The colossal tragedy the world is experiencing requires creative and synergistic solutions. Ambitions of global hegemony and domination must give way to a new paradigm of cooperation and inter-existence.